1007 – The first mention of a town named Watford appears in the Anglo-Saxon charter

1100 – Nicholas Breakspear, the first and only Englishman to become pope, is born in Bedmond in Abbots Langley

1279 – Eleanor of Castile, queen consort of Edward I, spends two years building Kings Langley Palace

1556 – Sir Charles Morrison, MP for Tavistock, finishes building Cassiobury House

1642 – The Watford Volunteers make a stand against the Royalist Army during the Civil War

1655 – Sedgwick’s Brewery begins as a small brewhouse owned by William Smith in Watford High Street

1678 – The Duke of Monmouth James Scott, illegitimate son of King Charles II, builds Moor Park mansion near Rickmansworth

1693 – The first version of Benskins Brewery is founded by John Pope

1798 – The Grand Junction Canal is built through Watford

1837 – The first part of the railway line opens in Watford

1838 – Watford Workhouse opens

1841 – Hertfordshire gets its first constabulary

1858 – Watford Junction opens

1863 – The first edition of the Watford Observer goes on sale

1886 – Watford Football Club is formed as Watford Rovers

1890 – Odhams Press, a publishing company, is founded

1902 – The people of Watford riot when King Edward VII’s coronation celebrations are postponed

1908 – Watford Palace Theatre opens

1908 – C.S. Lewis starts as a pupil at Wynyard, a boarding school in Watford

1911 – Watford Cinema Palace opens

1913 – A small factory is built in Kings Langley to manufacture Ovaltine

1913 – Croxley Green train station is destroyed in a fire started by suffragettes

1914 – Benskins Brewery sponsors the purchase of Vicarage Road for Watford Football Club

1919 – Sun Engraving Co. moves into premises on Whippendell Road

1925 – The Peace Memorial Hospital opens

1925 – The Metropolitan Railway Company builds a branch to Watford

1927 – Following an auction of its interior fittings, Cassiobury House is demolished

1928 – Watford’s war memorial, featuring three bronze statues, by local resident Mary Bromet, is placed outside the Peace Memorial Hospital

1930 – The former Watford Workhouse becomes a hospital, later to be called Watford General Hospital

1938 – Watford Colosseum opens as the Watford Town Hall Assembly Rooms

1939 – 30,000 evacuated children pass through Watford on their way to safety in the countryside

1939 – Watford Town Hall is completed

1940 – The first bombs of World War II fall on Watford, in Oxhey Woods and Moor Park and Rickmansworth golf courses

1941 – The Mosquito fighter bomber goes into production at Leavesden Aerodrome

1948 – A new fire station opens in Upton House in Watford, equipped with a horse-drawn steam fire engine

1970 – Cassiobury gates are destroyed as part of the widening of Rickmansworth Road

1970 – The old pumping station is converted into a theatre, the Pump House

1977 – Elton John purchases Watford Football Club

1981 – Watford Museum opens in the former Benskins Brewery building

1992 – The Harlequin Shopping Centre opens

1996 – The Peace Hospice is opened by Princess Michael of Kent

2000 – The site of Leavesden Aerodrome is acquired by Warner Bros.

2004 – The Grove reopens as a luxury hotel and spa

2013 – The Warner Bros. Studio Tour officially opens